The
Thergerim of
Sarvonia have seemingly always known of the unique ability of the
cave bat to locate itself in darkness by
sending out almost inaudible 'chits' of sound. Over the centuries the
dwarves have used careful breeding
techniques, magical intervention, and
Brownie-designed machinery to train their
Flitterwings to both send and receive simple messages using these sound pulses.
Young dwarves with exceptionally sharp
hearing (exceptional among the already sharp-eared
Thergerim) often find themselves drawn to an
apprenticeship with the Morjualerons - the
ThergerimTaal word for the
Singspeakers and their bat companions alike.

Description.
Morjualerons work together to use patient training and the assistance of a
peculiar and mysterious machine known as a Codesinger to help them hear and
'speak' to their bats;
they are able to memory-mark or 'scribe' short sequences of chittering sounds
into their bats' minds, and later retrieve
those sequences and understand them as meaningful messages.

I. A
Singspeaker apprentice begins, like most, at the bottom of the ladder, or as the dwarves would say, "at the
shallow end of the shaft". He (usually a male, in the Thergerim gender-division of
duties and roles, though exceptions are made for a female who demonstrates an
early proficiency) is started off cleaning the Bat Mews, preparing the training
treats, and other general scutwork. He must master the 'chit-code' (our clumsy
Tharian translation of 'ChitThaerAl' - 'chit' being pronounced 'cheet' in
oenomatopaeic imitation of the bat noises, and 'thaaer-al' meaning literally
'hidden-word') and be able to both code and decode messages in it.

Here we see a visual representation of four common chit-code 'words' which
Master Singspeaker Bolt Strongback (BoltTenGuul) has kindly shared with us; we
must note that this is an exceptional demonstration of the trust which has been
placed in our Compendium
researchers, as the 'language of the bats' has long been a secret
unique to the dwarves, and we in turn ask our
readers not to abuse that trust.

However, we have been permitted to give some general information about the
Morjualerons, so we must be grateful for even this scanty amount of detail! As
one might easily deduce, the messages are short and simple, conveying the
maximum information with the minimum complexity. They are composed of short
'chits' and longer 'theeks', with a maximum of four notes per 'word', and
between two to four 'words' per 'sentence'. A more complex message requires more
than one Morjual to send, each bat being
entrusted with a single sentence, and, presumably, some sort of numeral or
character to assist in arranging the received sentences in order!

It is known that the Zirghurim of Ximax band
all their bats; an aurium glint around one
dainty leg is a clear signal to any would-be bat
hunter that his sport will not repay him, and the
Zirg Morjualerons that are
infrequently found dead of natural causes or accidents away from their caverns
are always returned with care to the closest
dwarven enclave. Close examination of that slim gold-hued band would reveal
not only clearly-graven Thergerim runes
giving the clan and cavern name, but numbers and other, unusual characters, that
may serve to identify the individual bat,
possibly by age or even an individual name. This information might also be of
use when memory-marking a longer message to more than one Flitterwing, as above.

II. Once the
apprentice Singspeaker has demonstrated competence in visually deciphering the
chit-code and in composing messages in it, he is introduced to the Morjualerons
of the Mews - taken round and allowed to stroke each of the senior bats,
learning their unique shapes and markings, and listening to their 'voices'. He
is shown the complex Codesinger machines designed and built in conjunction with
the Vale Brownies of Clan
Maj and the Hammerer Clan, and begins to learn how they work. (Side Note: Though
we have learned that the Hammerers design and fabricate the small parts to be
used in the device, it seems that they merely consider them a commission from
the mages and do not know their eventual destination. This hints at a mystical
involvement which results in "something more than a mundane, mechanical
machine", as one craftsbrownie was willing to speculate to us.)

Again, though the exact process is shrouded in mystery, and only
Thergerim and Redbark Brownies (and even
then, only the singspeakers and mages of their clans, respectively!) ever
actually have seen these machines closely, we do have some scraps of fact from
our dwarven researchers and some unconfirmed
descriptions from members of other races - we can only present these for you as
we have received them and let you draw your own conclusions:

- testimony taken from a reformed bandit who claims to have attacked an
above-ground dwarven convoy and destroyed
what appeared to be, in his words, a sort of 'peckul-lie-er grain harvester, or
mebbe somthin' used fer torturin' folks?' with many small gears, a large turning
drum with miniature spikes or pins on it, a ' trumpet shaped like a bat's head'
and strips of flexible metal. Unfortunately this semi-literate Manthrian could
not describe how any of these elements interacted with each other or make any
guess at their function.

- the report of a merchant who was at a tunnel entrance doing some trading when
a savage windstorm forced him to request shelter - he and his goods were hurried
inside and down to a vacant homecave and left to his own devices while the
dwarves hastily blocked various vents - in
seeking out the privy he stumbled into the Mews themselves. He speaks poetically
but vaguely of a 'funnel-like device suspended in velvet semi-darkness' and
'strange plinking sounds like thin wood struck by raindrops' before he was
chased off by 'a clowd of flitterers and their indignant
dwarven master...'

- a bachelor dwarf muttering in his cups was
overheard - unhappily for him - by an eager young bard looking for her second
ring. She took down as much as she could of his disjointed but intriguing plaint
and discovered that he was the son of an old Singspeaker who had not inherited
his father's talent, and was in consequence made to feel of such little worth
that he did not have the confidence to even try to win a mate after his
Baregozar (the dwarven ritual of passing into
adulthood) but simply left the cavern voluntarily. His inebriated musings give
us a few more clues about the Codesinger's possible appearance...

III. Once
accepted by the bats, the young apprentice is
entrusted with a young bat of his own to
memory-mark, or 'teach' the code to. He is allowed to use a Codesinger to
produce simple phrases which he must go over again and again, patiently
encouraging the Flitterwing to 'repeat' them. Some
bats simply cannot understand what they are being asked to do, even with
their enchantedly enhanced minds, and these ones are gently evicted from the
Mews as being untrainable. Eventually, with the assistance of the Codesinger,
the apprentice Singspeaker will be able to create a phrase and have the young
bat chitter it back to him.

The dwarves who will speak of this are all
united in emphasis: the Morjual does NOT understand the code as a language, is
not able to use it to communicate, and cannot be considered as sentient. Rather,
as a mockerbird or psitta might hear and
repeat a Tharian word, it reproduces only the sound which it hears, itself
taking no meaning from the sequent of chits. Their ability lies only in being
able to remember the phrase for the duration of the flight.

How the bat is instructed to fly to a certain
cavern, perhaps in a completely different province from its home cave, is a
complete mystery. We had surmised that the Morjual were merely traded from clan
to clan, like simple homing coa-coa birds, so
that each cave could send home-bound bats on a
one-way trip. However, the Thergerim say
flatly that that is not the case, rendering that particular theory incorrect.
How the strange bat is received into the new
cavern and how induced to discharge itself of its coded song has not been
disclosed or observed.

And finally, exactly how the message is unscriven, or erased from the
bat's memory is also unclear to us. We suspect
the Codesinger is able to both imitate and translate, if you will, the almost
inaudible sounds of the Morjual, of course, but perhaps it also serves as a
reagent for magical workings which wipe the
simple mind as a mage might wipe a spell from a slate he had finished.

IV. The
apprentice must be able to perform all these duties; he must also be able to
keep the Codesinger that will be assigned to him in good maintenance and perhaps
in good repair. Specialist Brownie craftsmen
and mages are kept in contact with, should there be a breakdown or failure of
the machinery itself, but some older Singspeakers have picked up a great deal of
facility from observation. Infrequently a particularly sensitive
dwarf will develop the skill to 'hear' the
Flitterwings directly, and translate simple messages even without the assistance
of the Codesinger, but this is apparently rare.

Location and Areas.
As far as we have been able to determine, all of the
dwarven clans in
Sarvonia possess a Mews and a number of
Codesingers, and are able to communicate more or less freely between themselves.
It is possible that central clans such as the
Boltgrums pass on messages, for
surely it would be well-nigh impossible for a single
bat to go from the
Mitharim clan in the southeastern
mountains to the Low Fores, so many
strals away - or at least
most risky - not an adjective usually applied to the
dwarves!

Dwarven finesmiths work closely with
Brownie craftsmages of the Redbark Clan in
the Vale to create the parts of the Codesinger, but the finished machine is
assembled by the Singspeakers themselves in the depths of the Mews where it is
destined to remain hidden. What the Brownies
receive in exchange for their labour is unclear; we might guess at something as
simple as the raw metal they require, or payment in refined gold and
gems which can be exchanged through the
human/Brownie
markets, but we cannot inform you in detail.

Purpose and Use.
Obviously, this is a valuable means of swift and more or less accurate
communication which many a human king might
envy; it is no wonder that the dwarves have
kept it so grudgingly to themselves over the centuries. However, it is limited
by the simplicity of the messages which may be carried, their brevity, and the
fragility of the Flitterwings themselves, vulnerable to night predators, illness
or sheer weariness.

We also note that the bats can only carry
these short phrases in memory - no miniature scrolls around their legs or bodies
as may be done with the heavier, heartier coa-coa
- not even a trinket for memory, a gem
that might seal a bargain, a dust-light packet of herbs for needed healing. Nor
can these messengers experience and learn the breadth of our country, mapping
and minding it as our horse couriers do,
riding the roads of Santharia on the
King's business. We need not begrudge the deep-dwelling
Thergerim their humble night-flitting
messengers, need we?

Had we space here we should love to tell you the whole of the
dwarven children's story of "The Midnight
Morjual", about how a little bat arrived in time to rescue an ill-favoured youth
- but let us not ruin the tale for you! Rather, do you seek out the shelf of
Children's Tales in our Library to read and enjoy...

History. Apparently
the relationship between Thergerim and
Morjual has existed as long as their history details. The first faltering steps
in 'hearing' bat-speak and from then
attempting to direct and train it into a simple code were done very early on,
but dwarves refuse to provide exact dates.
However, from trade records and other carefully-dug out information which we
Compendiumists specialize in
uncovering, we can now tell you that Singspeaker machines could not have existed
in their present form before five hundred years ago - in other words, a mere
couple of dwarven generations. Thus we can
describe them as relatively 'new technology', and it is our hope that someday a
similar system may be available 'aboveground' as well.

We must apologetically remind our readers again that the processes and details
about the Codesingers are difficult to obtain; however,
dwarves speak very highly of the contemporary
Singspeaker Pola DawnSung (GordnShaeVer, literally 'startday-music-past'), who
has been instrumental in refining some long-standing crudities of the machines'
design, and in keeping strong trade links with the Vale Brownies
over the years. Our Masterbard Judith,
dwarvenfriend of longstanding, has been privileged to meet with him on a number
of occasions and describes him as "tall - for a
Thergerim - craggy-faced and loquacious". She adds that despite not being
able to view him at his work in the Mews, a location strictly off-bounds to
other races, his competence and technical skill cannot be doubted. He himself is
a fine musician as well as a Morjual, and the two have enjoyed playing together
at cavernsings several times.

Our deepest gratitude to Master Singspeaker Bolt Tenguul (Bolt Strongback) and
to the Tenthrum Clan for their
assistance in compiling this entry!